Photo Credit: Refugees International/ Eugene Carlson
01/09/2005

T.W. Sachinta, an eight-year-old boy, has been living at Welliwata Temple with his family since the tsunami destroyed his home. His family says he saved their lives. He was playing on the beach when the first wave came, and ran to alert his mother who was cooking breakfast. The family fled their home -- with the father carrying his elderly mother in his arms -- but had only reached the coastal railroad tracks 300 meters inland when the largest wave hit. Still, they survived. The boy’s father says his son is mentally scarred and refuses to return to their village or even to look at the ocean.